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Salad

Cabbage Salad

A salad of finely chopped cabbage and celery dressed with a creamy egg-based sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cabbage Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine the beaten eggs, cream, salt, mustard, sugar, vinegar, and butter.

  2. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens.

Assemble the salad

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped cabbage and celery, and sprinkle with salt.

  2. Once the dressing has cooled, add 2 tablespoons of cream and pour it over the cabbage mixture.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + cabbagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they set during gentle cooking, giving it body.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the dressing, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the dressing its tang and balances the sweetness.
Cabbage
Forms the crisp, bulky base of the salad, giving crunch and texture.
Celery
Adds crunch and a fresh, slightly salty vegetal flavor to the salad.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing over low heat, stirring constantly. Eggs thicken as they heat, but if they get too hot they can scramble into lumps. Low heat and constant stirring keep the dressing smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, mustard, sugar, vinegar, butter, celery):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, mustard, sugar, vinegar, butter, celery. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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